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On Dec 7th, 1941 Cornelia Fort, a young civilian flight instructor from Tennessee, and her regular Sunday-morning student took off from John Rodgers Airport in Honolulu. Fort's apprentice was advanced enough to fly regular take-offs and landings and this was to have been his last lesson before going solo. With the novice at the controls, Fort noticed a military aircraft approaching from the sea. At first that didn't strike her as unusual; Army planes were a common sight in the skies above Hawaii. But at the last moment, she realized this aircraft was different and that it had set itself on a collision course with her plane. She wrenched the controls from her student's grasp and managed to pull the plane up just in time to avoid a mid-air crash. As she looked around she saw the red sun symbol on the wings of the disappearing plane and in the distance, probably not more than a quarter mile away, billowing smoke was rising over Pearl Harbor. The disbelieving Fort had just unwittingly witnessed the U.S. entry into WW2. A little more than a year after this near miss, Fort would be flying military aircraft for the U.S. and a mid-air collision would tragically make her the first American woman to die on active military duty.
Fort learned to fly after graduating and she became a flight insturctor in Colorado, and then, in Hawaii. In Jan 1942, Jacqueline Cochran invited her to join the group of women flying for the Royal Air Force Air Transport Auxiliary. Fort, however, was still awaiting evacuation from Hawaii. When she finally arrived back in Nashville to begin instructing for the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP), she was in demand as a speaker and was even featured in a short war movie. She was the second woman to volunteer for the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (the WAFS, which later merged into the WASPs,), whose members logged millions of miles ferrying aircraft to points of embarkation and towing targets for training exercises. On a routine ferrying flight in 1943, Fort died at the controls of an aircraft when another plane struck hers.
She was the first woman pilot to die in the line of duty for the U.S. military.
A marker at the Cornelia Fort Airport in Tennessee bears this quote from the pilot: "I am grateful that my one talent, flying, was useful to my country." Only 24 years old.
A memorial erected by a local man who located the actual crash site in 2000, in Mulberry Canyon, Texas. The existence of this memorial was unknown. The memorial is on private property, it's exact location a secret to protect the owner of the property.
Cornelia Fort was portrayed in the 1970 film “Tora, Tora, Tora” in the role of the 21 year old. Fort closed-cabin Interstate Cadet monoplane was depicted as an open-cockpit Stearman Kaydet biplane.
Fort learned to fly after graduating and she became a flight insturctor in Colorado, and then, in Hawaii. In Jan 1942, Jacqueline Cochran invited her to join the group of women flying for the Royal Air Force Air Transport Auxiliary. Fort, however, was still awaiting evacuation from Hawaii. When she finally arrived back in Nashville to begin instructing for the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP), she was in demand as a speaker and was even featured in a short war movie. She was the second woman to volunteer for the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (the WAFS, which later merged into the WASPs,), whose members logged millions of miles ferrying aircraft to points of embarkation and towing targets for training exercises. On a routine ferrying flight in 1943, Fort died at the controls of an aircraft when another plane struck hers.
She was the first woman pilot to die in the line of duty for the U.S. military.
A marker at the Cornelia Fort Airport in Tennessee bears this quote from the pilot: "I am grateful that my one talent, flying, was useful to my country." Only 24 years old.
A memorial erected by a local man who located the actual crash site in 2000, in Mulberry Canyon, Texas. The existence of this memorial was unknown. The memorial is on private property, it's exact location a secret to protect the owner of the property.
Cornelia Fort was portrayed in the 1970 film “Tora, Tora, Tora” in the role of the 21 year old. Fort closed-cabin Interstate Cadet monoplane was depicted as an open-cockpit Stearman Kaydet biplane.